0 David Malan and CS50

Today I attended a talk at Carnegie Mellon University. The presenter was David Malan - a Harvard lecturer of Computer Science. About three years ago, Dr. Malan inherited the School's CS50 course (http://www.cs50.net/). Here is the course description, taken from the CS50 website.

Introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming. This course teaches students how to think algorithmically and solve problems efficiently. Topics include abstraction, encapsulation, data structures, databases, memory management, software development, virtualization, and websites. Languages include C, PHP, and JavaScript plus SQL, CSS, and XHTML. Problem sets inspired by real-world domains of biology, cryptography, finance, forensics, and gaming. Designed for concentrators and non-concentrators alike, with or without prior programming experience.

Since inheriting the course, Dr. Malan has made CS50 a "sexier" and more attractive course for students across disciplines at Harvard. Here are a few stats about the class:

• Enrollment is up 168% since 1989; In 1989 there were about 150 enrolled in the class, in 2000 there were about 260 and in 2009 there are about 350 students currently enrolled in CS50.
• Mainly sophomore students; primarily because Harvard freshman are inandated with general education requirements.
• 71.5% of the students have no prior coursework in CS.
• Gender: In 2007 women made up about 29% of the students; 2008, women made up 38% of the students.
• From 2007 to 2008, there was increase of about 50 student enrollment, of which, most were women.
• Workload: <5>

There were a few things that stood out about this course

1. Dr. Malan videotapes his lessons and provides them for the students
2. His pedagogical approach targets learners of various styles through the use of Scribe notes, lecture, recitation (led by undergraduate students), bulletin board, course website and code walkthroughs.
3. There are approximately 60 undergraduate students serving as teaching fellows (paid) or course assistants (volunteers)
4. He uses Scratch (developed at MIT's media lab) to introduce computational thinking and programming concepts during week 0; then translates Scratch to C for the students. He says this helps to reduce the cognitive load (eg. little distractions, students can focus on the concepts that matter). This technique, he states is "pedagogically useful."
   
5. He provides a "regular" version of each homework assignment and a "hacker" version - for students who desire a little more challenge (no extra points)
   

Here is a sample of the topics he covers week by week (syllabus - pdf):

week 0 - multi-threading, events (Scratch)
week 2 - stacks, frames, scope, arrays, cryptography, strings, command line arguments
week 3 - search, sort, asymptotic notation, recursion, sorting & debugging
week 4 - structures, dynamic memory allocation, stack/heaps, pointers
week 5 - input/output, forensics, linked lists, stacks, queues
week 7 - bitwise operations, hash tables, trees & binary search
week 8 - TCP/IP, HTTP, XHTML, PHP, SQL
week 9 - DOM, CSS, Inheritance, JavaScript events, AJAX
week 10 -Preprocessing, compiling, assembly, linking, CPUs
...

The number of topics and content that he covers during a semester is AMAZING!! How do you do it, when most students have no prior programming experience? Scratch in week 0 to students proficient and advanced in hash tables, trees, binary search, Web design and AJAX in week 12?? Must be excellent teaching, relevant & engaging curriculum.

All of his lectures are available on itunes and the course website is accessible to the public.

Great talk and an interesting twist on teaching computer science - in his words, "Making it sexier" (I <3 it!) Read the blog, visit his website, download lectures as podcasts, learn something about making CS fun!

0 Culturally-Situated design tools: Facilitating math & computing education with design agency

Prof. Audrey Bennett, Rensselaer
TEACHING MATH AND COMPUTING THROUGH CULTURE

problem

• under-represented minority students can perceive antagonism between their cultural identity and the curriculum leading to IT careers

solution

• sophisticated mathematical and computational concepts and practices are embedded in the arts and artifacts of minority students' cultural background

implementation

• culturally-situated design tools convert ethno-mathematics into software simulations for student use.

csdt.rpi.edu
- making a case for indiginous knowledge
- directly contradict racist stereotypes
- makes it impossible to accuse a student of "acting white" when they know that African Americans, Native Americans, Latino/as understood these concepts before they were "discovered" by whites.

Pedagogy of CSDTs:

• Had to give the students the historical background of conrow braiding (they thought it came from Brooklyn!)
• Tutorial - teach the students different concepts and opportunity to interact with the software (eg. iteration, rotation, dilation).
• Software - students can simulate the hairstyles, using mathematical formulas

The program has shown statistically significant results (improvement) in student attitudes towards computing and mathematics performance. The most significant is the designs they were able to create using the software.

Ann Gates, University of Texas - El Paso
Focus: recruitment, retention and advancement of Hispanics in computing

Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions
http://cahsi.cs.utep.edu/

Culturally responsive education: using cultural knowledge, prior experience and performing styles of diverse students to enable students to be better learners and human beings.

Statistics

1. limited parental involvement (parents have trust in schools)
2. 21% high school drop out rate (x2 non-hispanic drop out rate)

Trained faculty in cooperative learning techniques (very successful for them)

Evaluation is online - http://cahsi.cs.utep.edu/ABOUT/Evaluation/tabid/79/Default.aspx

Compugirls
Dr. Kimberly A. Scott - Executive Director
www.compugirls.asu.edu

• Culturally relevant pedagogy puts the students at the center of the classroom.
• COMPUGIRLS is a culturally relevant technology program for adolescent (grades 8-12) girls from under-resourced school districts in the Greater Phoenix area.
  
• Take what the girls already know about technology and VALUE it.
• Build on that knowledge as a means to advance their own communities.
• Mentor teachers work with 5 or 6 girls.
• Students becoming problem solvers, in the context of technology.
• Started in summer 2007
• provides under-resourced school districts and the young women they serve an opportunity to gain and expand their research, tech, and social justice skills.

objectives
- computational thinking
- fun enviornment
- analytical skills

course 1 - introduction
course 2 - the sims
course 3 - scratch
course 4 - intro to teen second life
course 5 - teen second life
course 6 - capstone of teen second life

Significant change in perceived technical ability

0 Teaching K12 CS with Toys and Manipulatives

Teaching K12 CS with Toys and Manipulatives
Robb Cutler, Tutor Crossing, former Assistant Head, Harker School



Towers of Hanoi with stacking rings
Have students write down their steps.
How many steps did you use?
How do we solve this in a more general case? What is the pattern?
- The pattern is hard to see, because it is recursive.
This is a "hard" problem; students need scaffolding; make it natural. A very exploratory example.





Stacking Cups

• allows us to represent data in a non-numeric way.
• use to teach sorting algorithms
• can introduce terminology such as invariants, algorithmic run time (number of steps), algorithmic analysis - what is a step? number of comparisons;
  
• Want to teach them the math, but not use math :)

Rob used the diagram below to illustrate the number of comparisons used in sorting.

• count - first time there are 6 comparisons (7 items); second time there are 5 comparisons ... and so on ... (black stars - below)
  
• this is an n^2 "thing" - if i double the number of cups (to 14), i know have double the number of comparisons
• the student can visually see the relationships in the diagram.
  

* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *

Ping Pong Balls

• number the balls
• use pvc pipe to represent the "stack" and ping pong balls as items
  
• use to make a stack, with two arrows (push, pop)
• push a 1 to the stack, pop a 1 from the stack
• can teach FIFO, LIFO, peak(), isempty()
• can talk about what we can do with a stack - how do I reverse the number? push numbers and pop until empty.
• must have rules; have "enqueue" and "dequeue" on each end
  

If they can hold it in their hands, they can learn it better.

• can also use this to represent a queue
• clear plastic tubes: can see what's inside; or using the pvc pipes it is a "black box"
  

PVC pipes and connectors - binary trees


- add velcro to the items (laminated pieces of paper - eg. numbers)
- data structure is recursive - "mimics itself in other places"








Use whiteboard to "code" on the board. Formulate the rules of writing an algorithm.
Allow students to generate the code or algorithm.

What other ideas - using toys to teach computing concepts?
- toy trains for linked list
- my first barrel of monkeys - linked list & pointers
- quercetti toys - binary arithmetic, good for just in the classroom
- bags of candy - separate by attribute, use to teach classes
- PB&J - logic & syntax errors
- yarn of string to teach recursion - through it across the room to students
- mancala: recursion, iteration, mathematical thinking

0 AP CS: Past, Present & Future Directions

Chris Stephenson, CSTA
www.csta.acm.org

Why a New AP CS course?

• AP enrollment has stayed stagnant over the last ten years
• Compared to other AP disciplines, the female participation is PITIFUL
• African Americans - Enrollment: 17%, APCS exams 3%

We need a more engaging course

• In many states APCS is the only CS course that counts for "anything"
• This isn't just an equity issue, it is a survival issue
• We are failing to engage young women and minority students
• Students are concerned that the APCS class will take their GPA's down
• AP CS is a "gatekeeper" course; perceived to be more difficult than other AP classes
• Designed as a college level course
• Never meant to be the first CS course a student ever takes
• Sets the students up for failure and convinces them CS is not the field for them

Systemic issues

• - unless we increase the number of students taking hs cs, our enrollments will languish at the post-secondary level
• because CS is an elective and not a core course
• - states are increasing the number of math and science credits students must have in order to graduate

Need to prove that CS is relevant

• establish that CS is a science and not a technology
• need to make what we teach connect with kids today
• need a sensible, age level appropriate series of courses that students can take and that colleges can depend upon to be consistent and rigorous

Background

1. last year the college board announced they were eliminating the AP CS AB exam, leaving only the AP CS A exam
2. the AP CS A exam will continued to be reviewed and updated based on these changes and previous issues

Current Players
- AP CS Development Committee: review content and specifications, make suggestios for research studies
- AP CS Development Commission: writing the new AP CS principles course
- Chis Stephenson & Rich Lamb is on this committee (CS Dev Commission); "want a language neutral course"
- AP CS Advisory Committee: advising the commission on the big ideas of the new AP CS Principles course, advising regarding the supporting concepts; providing key feedback


Where is the Commission now

• developed and revised big ideas
• developed and revised key concepts
• developed and revised supporting concepts
• revising skills and practices document

The big ideas (shshhh!)

• Computing is a creative human activity.
• Abstraction is the process of reducing information and details to solve problems.
• Humans use computer programs to manipulate data
• Algorithms are tools for developing and expressing solutions to computational problems
• Programming is a tool for computational problem solving and the exploration and creation of knowledge
• Computer systems and networks facilitate communication and computational problem solving

Jan Cuny (NSF) - Making HS CS work for all students
BPC - Broadening Participation in Computing

Why high school?
1. We need to do much better there.
2. We need to start at high school to do much better elsewhere (eg. college, workplace)

Only 1% of students show up at college stating they want to study computer science
The number of degrees awarded is about equal to the number of students who enter

Why focus on AP?
- Only course that carries college credit?
- Attractive to students & schools
- 2,000 CollegeBoard audited teachers
- Single point of national leverage


2007 Stats about AP CS test takers
14,529 took AP CS A
~204,000 Calc AB
141,321 Bio
96,282 Stats

AP CS had the worst gender balance of any of the AP test
18% CS A
48.7 Calculus
50.2% Statistics

What's wrong with the current AP course?

• doesn't appeal to many students
• inaccessible

Math and Science in US High Schools (NRC< 2002)

AP courses should
- reflect what we know about how students learn
- build students' transferabl, conceptual understanding and inquiry skills
- convey the content and unifying themes

New AP CS course (Gold Standard Course - GSC)

• engaging, inspiring, rigorous
• focused on the fundamental concepts of computing
• target for 9-12
• pilot at the college level 2010
• pilot at the high school level 2011
• test available 2015

HS Computing Curriculum (course sequence)
- Intro Computing (for everyone)
- GSC
- AP CS A (possibly modified)

Goal: have the new curriculum taught in 10,000 schools by 10,000 well prepared teachers by 2015.

CS/10,000 Project

- Curriculum development
- Teacher preparation
* in-service preparation
* pre-service preparation
* ongoing professional development
* entree into schools

Where is CS in STEM? Everywhere!

The time is right. Get OUR foot in the door. There is a lot of talk about STEM education. Be aggressive. "We are not going to have this option again in 5 years."

(Short) Discussion

1. Why was AP CS AB canceled? Not enough students taking the exam.

Another great session!

0 Stuck in the Shallow End

Stuck in the Shallow End
Education, Race & Computing
Jane Margolis
with Rachel Estrella, Joanne Goode, Jennifer Jellison Holme and Kim Nao

This is my second time hearing Jane Margolis speak about education, race and computing. Earlier this year, Jane was a keynote at the Tapia Conference in Portland, Oregon. I read some of her research, regarding race and computing, sometime around 2004-2005. Her work led me to a commitment in computer science education. Today she is the morning keynote speaker at the K12 Teachers workshop.

One of the outcomes of her work in computer science education is the Exploring Computer Science Curriculum - A pre-APCS course. If you are teaching (or plan to teach) an introduction to computing course, I recommend reviewing this curriculum. It includes day to day lesson plans and activities.

• Over 20 schools/750 students
• relevant/engaging
• need to assess student achievement
• PD is important**

Key Question

Why are so few African American, Lationo/a and Female High School Students Learning Computer Science?

The Schools

East River High School

• Built for 2000 students, has 5000 students
• Technology rich, but curriculum poor; "filled with technology!"
• Classes: word processing, internet publishing, No APCS
  
• Teachers, administration were confusing computer literacy with computer science
• The thinking and problem solving was missing from the curriculum
• CS was vocational, NOT academic core; Did not "boost" academic transcript of college bound students, so they opted not to take the course.
• Teachers "out of subject"/no CS credential
• CS as a "dumping ground"
• Interest is there, courses are NOT

Westward Senior High - Math Science Aerospace Magnet

• Predominately African American, middle/working class families
• Similar to East River in many ways
• AP was there, but canceled after 1 year because the student's scores were so low
• Classes: Internet publishing class, Introduction to computers

Canyon High School

• "Preparatory Privilege" vs. Innate Talent
• Students from over 101 zip codes
• two- thirds of the students are of colore
• "Two schools in one"
• Incredible racial divide - but students of color not in honors classes

Issues in K12 Computer Science

• Disparities falling along race/class lines
• CS -- vocational
• Teachers isolated; need more training
• Pedagogy "boring", rote
• Pressure of high-stakes testing/shrinking curriculum
• computer classes as "Dumping Grounds"
• Insularity of AP CS
• Belief systems rationalize low curriculum

K12/University Partnership Formed: CS Equity Alliance

Initial Focus: Equity Access to AP CS (2004-07)

1. 11 (out of 57) High Schools offered AP CS
2. Commitments from principals
3. AP CS teachers attend UCLA Institute

Results

African Americans: 17 to 33
Latino/as: 53 to 297
Females: 47 to 230

Jane used the line "Two steps forward, one step back" to describe the persistent problems that exist, even though there is a big effort (and success) in computer science education at the K12 level.

1. loss of teachers and classes (testing pressures)
2. teachers need more training
3. students need more support/more preparation
4. frustrations with AP CS

Great keynote (as usual)!!

0 Grace Hopper Conference and K12 Teachers workshop

Arrived in Tucson, AZ yesterday afternoon for the Grace Hopper Conference. They are also sponsoring a K12 Teachers Workshop that began yesterday (Friday) evening with an entire day of workshops on Saturday. I am looking forward to meeting other computing teachers, sharing best practices and learning about the plethora of classes that K12 teachers are offering in computer science.

There were 650 applications to attend this workshop (full funding + stipend) and they only chose 100 of us! So it is a great privilege to attend this workshop with my colleagues. Look forward to my posts about the different sessions I attend.

0 Using recommender systems to teach math concepts

I'm sitting in my Advanced Topics in Web Technologies class with Alex Labrinidis; today's discussion is recommendation systems. For example, movie, book or music suggestions/recommendations. We are all familiar with Amazon.com recommending books that we'd like to purchase based upon our previous purchases to their home page.

Now, this is the first time I've "engaged" in learning about recommendation system, but my mind is always pondering about ways to introduce these concepts to high school students.

1. Recommendation systems use a correlation score (eg. Pearson's correlation, Euclidean distance) to determine similar users.
2. Problem Solving: explain the algorithm used to determine correlation (likeness). Give the students a sample data set. Ask them to determine which users have the highest correlation.
3. We can then take it a few steps further, having the students create a "recommendation system" by hand and requiring them to determine the best method of correlation and answering some critical thinking questions.

Class is dismissed.

0 SIGCSE 2010 - BOF Topic: Outreach to Minority Student

This is a copy of an email I recently sent to the SIGCSE (Special Interest Group in CS Education) mailing list:

-----

Hi SIGCSE!

I am the Director of a pre-college program at the University of Pittsburgh (
www.cs.pitt.edu/tli) and a CS teacher at the Pittsburgh Science & Technology
Academy (www.pghscitech.net). This year for SIGCSE, myself and a few
colleagues plan to submit a Birds of a Feather (BOF) about
College/University outreach programs to minority students. We are seeking a
2-3 additional educators or researchers who have atleast 2-3 years of
successful experience in organizing outreach programs for minority, high
school students.

The goal of this workshop is to provide an environment for those interested
in having an informal discussion about successful strategies of
college/university outreach programs for minority students. (From the SIGCSE
website ->) Proposers of BOF sessions should serve as discussion leaders
only. BOFs are not intended to be presentations.

If you are interested in being a presenter in this BOF, please submit the
following information to (tli@pitt.edu) by *October 12, 2009 by 5pm EST*.

- Biography of presenter
- History and description of the program (about 300 - 500 words)
- Student demographics (eg. age/grade, gender, ethnicity)
- Indicators of success (outcomes/results)
- Contact information (including website)

We are seeking diversity in the presenters - in terms of types of programs
and student demographics. We may request additional information to make a
final decision.

FYI: The SIGCSE BOF deadline is November 2, 2010.

BOF Information:http://www.sigcse.org/sigcse2010/presenters/bof.php

I look forward to your response. Please do not hesitate if you have any
questions.

0 Best email client for mac?

I switch email clients regularly. I've tried Entourage, Apple's Mail, Opera and now I'm just using Gmail to check ALL of my email (I've used Gmail the longest). Some of my requirements include,

• Managing about 4 accounts, address books, etc.
• Integrate calendar into mail client
• Integrate tasks into mail client
• Receive mail from multiple accounts AND send from multiple accounts
• Apply different signatures from each mail account
• Create and manage mailing lists

One of the features that I don't like about Gmail is that their Address book is very basic. I also like that using Gmail, I can check my email ANYWHERE. But more and more, I find myself needing to manage mailing lists for business and personal use. At work, we use Outlook (on an Exchange server) and I like it! Entourage is (kind of) the Mac version of Outlook, but I had some problems with it in the past ...

What are your thoughts .... what Mac email client is best for multiple email accounts (IMAP) for both business and personal use??

0 Day 1 - Arriving in Milan

What a trip. Flight to Newark - delayed about an hour. Had a 1 hour connection (prior to flight being delayed - then turned to a 3 minute connection); had to call an airport cart to transport us to our gate to board for Amsterdam. Then once we get on the plane to Amsterdam, the flight was delayed due to weather. So we sat on the plane for about an hour. Then fly from Amsterdam to Milan (good) except that we stood at baggage claim for about 20 minutes and our bags never appeared. So now we are in Milan, but luckily we packed clothes and toiletries in our carry on bag. YESSSS!! :) So lets see if our bags appear at our hotel tonight ...

Tanya reminded me - Continental Airlines fed us VERY good. Dinner: chicken with rild rice, salad, a whole grain dinner roll and a brownie. Breakfast: A soft, buttery and warm croissant with butter, jelly and fruit ... and of course, I had some coffee. The flight was very pleasant.

0 Its been a while

It's been a while since I've posted.

I'm getting ready to visit Italy for the UMAP conference (umap09.fbk.eu). I'm presenting a poster at the Doctorial Consortium. I hope to blog a few times while in Italy :)

Signing off ...

0 Stuck in the Shallow End

This mornings plenary speaker is Dr. Jane Margolis. I mentioned her work in a previous post, as she is one of the major reasons why I wanted to attend this conference. Her work in education, race and computing motivates and drives my life's work.

How do academic fields get segregated? Why does education have a deep history of inequity? "This is the issue we've been uncovering by looking at computer science." Under representation in CS is a contemporary window into how inequality is reproduced in this country.

The myth: Technology is the great equalizer.

• disparities in access along the race and class lines
• which students are learning to do what with technology

Stories from the 3 schools
East River High School

• Technology rich but curriculum poort
• No AP CS, but an Internet publishing class
• Cut and paste curriculum
• CS vocational, not academic
• 1 programming class that lasted 2 years, by a math teacher (on his own); but the class did not last because it was not aligned with the priorities of the school; the computer class could only fit 20 students
  
• "If computer science is not at the academic core, it is going to be put out ..."
• There was interest, but not courses
• These rudimentary classes became a "dumping ground" for students with interest in computing

Westward Senior High Math Science Aerospace Magnet

• Dr. Margolis described this as the most disturbing school
  
• Students often described as "lazy, not movitated, not capable, not up to it ..."
• Introduction to computers - 2 periods (taught by a history teacher)
  
• Internet Publishing - 2 periods
• 30% of the students interviewed at the school were self-described as "techies"
• Principal - "I just want students to be functional when they leave here."

Canyon High School

• Located in the white, wealthy part of LA
• 1/3 of students from the neighborhood, 2/3 of students (African American) from other neighborhoods
  
• Full array of CS courses, but little to no participation of students of color or females
• Programming actually turned off the kids to computer science, by the way that it was taught.
• While this is an integrated school with a diverse population, it was really "two schools in one."
• Preparatory Privilege = the "gift of computing"

What was happening in computer science, is similar to what is going on in many other subjects. The self-fulfilling prophecy across all three schools is best described by Shirley Malcolm:

Lack of authentic access gets translated into victim blaming, while preparatory privilege gets translated into a gift of computing, yielding the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy.

Despite all the issues, they found that the interest in computing is there, but the courses are not.

So they formed The Computer Science Equity Alliance
Mission: to help build capacity to expand access to college preparatory computer science learning opportunities and to broaden participation.
- In two years time, they had significant results.

And designed a Pre-AP course titled, Exploring Computer Science.

Their model for K-12/University Alliance to Help Build School Capacity: To Broaden Participation in Computing you need Technical Changes, Normative Changes and Political Changes.

• college prep currciulum
• engage diverse students
• new pedagogy
• create a pipeline of courses
• teacher leaders are key
• need CS certification
• must win support of district, state, washington DC
• need a Methods course at the college level
• Resources, resources, resources

"It's a question of STOLEN ACCESS ... and you can really see it in computer science."

Jane ended her talk with a picture of PRESIDENT Barack Obama in an office with his feet kicked up on the desk and described that we are in a NEW historical moment. "We have to think bigger than we ever thought before." Listening to her talk really confirmed by career aspirations and re-energized me for the work that God has set out for me to complete.



Reading List
Ensuring Exemplary Teaching in an Essential Discipline (CSTA)

0 Tele-immersion

Tele-immersion, the next generation of communication and collaboration technologies

Ruzena Bajcsy
EECS Department, University of California Berkley

Dr. Bajcsy was the plenary speaker during lunch. She discussed her work in tele-immersion. In her work with tele-immersion, she is using video cameras and technology to capture two people at different locations and allow them to visually communicate. In the examples that she showed, two dancers, in two different parts of the country, in real-time, are able to 'dance together' by viewing the other person on a computer monitor, in 3D.

Applications include: scientific collaboration, teaching & training and the arts.

0 Tapia Conference - Portland, Oregon

Over the next several days, I am attending the Richard Tapia Conference for Diversity in Computing. "The Tapia 2009 Conference is aimed at providing a supportive networking environment for under-represented groups across the broad range of computing and information technology, from science to business to the arts to infrastructure."

I am looking forward to networking, meeting other people who 'look like me' in computing and attending the sessions. Particularly, I am looking forward to hearing the Plenary talk by Jane Margolis. She is one of the primary reasons I am excited about attending this conference. Dr. Margolis is a researcher at UCLA and her research area is social inequality and education; the gender and race gap in computer science; high school to college equity issues: gender socialization and groupthink. I am most familiar with her work at CMU about women in computer science, their motivations, the culture and experiences. She published a book titled, Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing in 2002 about this work. She recently published another book, Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing in 2008. In this book, Dr. Margolis studies the culture and experiences of students in three Los Angeles public high schools- an overcrowded urban high school, a math and science magnet school and a school in an affluent neighborhood. She discovers how inequality and segregation are reproduced and creates this race gap in computer science. Dr. Magolis' work shares with the world how the computer sciene race gap is created and maintained through our secondary school systems. I definitely recommend reading this book!

The next several entries are my reflections and notes about the Tapia conference.

0 What is Graduate School: Goals and Skills

I really didn't know what to expect from attending this session, but it did seem to be a productive use of my time.

Margaret Martonosi, Princeton University
Krasimira Kapitanova, University of U. Virginia

"We don't have any kids, but I have a dog that I treat like a child"

this was a HORRIBLE statement to make in front of a group of women considering a PhD. Enough said.

Prepping for the qualifying exams
- talk to veteran students how your school's system works
- sometimes students don't have the full story: ask your adviser too
- ask your department for prior versions of the exam


Progressing in Research

• Relax: your advisor often gives you first research problem
• Balance: concrete enough to make progress <--> far reaching enough to be research
• Read other papers

How to make Progress

• break the big problem into steps
• break the first few steps into even more steps
• eventually: a to-do list becomes a roadmap for what to accomplish each day

"I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship."

- Louisa May Alcott

0 Publishing Your Research

This was a very informative presentation about publishing research. Although, I've published a few papers and it is not a totally new process, I found the session very informative. The session was led by Holly Rushmeier from Yale University.

• - Quality, not quantity: valuable ideas expressed clearly
• - As career progresses number of citations, not number of papers, matters
• - How to generate cites? High quality work; Highly visible publication venue
• Go to a conference, where those papers seem to be cited a lot.
  

We all do it ... we have one or two more paragraphs that we want to include in the paper, so we increase the margin size or decrease the font size (to something unreadable). The rule is "Don't cheat on the font size, margins, etc." Why? Because this gives the reviewers an easy reason to 'throw out' your paper, no matter how well it is written.

Calculation for journal impact factor

A = Year N cites to articles published in Years N-1 and N-2
B = number of articles published in years n-1 and n-2
C = a/b = year n impact factor

0 PhD Non-Academic Career Paths: Industrial Research & Development

The idea of working in Industry at times seems very interesting. The pay is good, you actually get to build projects and you can progress through different positions through the company (change). Several of the women at the workshop shared their experiences in non-academic careers. They include:

Gildar Garreton
Vidya Sethur, Nokia Research Labs
Telle Whitney, President of the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology

[Vidya Sethur]
Pros of a Non-academic job

1. Get to be in tune and hands-on with the latest technology
2. Can make impact with business
3. Don't hae to write grants, but can patent
4. Decent pay
5. No tenure process

Cons of a Non-academic job

1. Dangers of getting into advanced development mode vs. research mode
2. Work influenced by company's focus
3. Projects and management can change
4. Job (in)security
5. No tenure process

If you are particularly looking for research, ask where the funding comes from. The funding dictates what type of research you can do. Ask about the funding model.

[Telle Whitney]
Co-Founder of the Grace Hopper Conference!!

She enjoys the people she works with. "The quality of your work includes the people you work with."

0 PhD or Not???? (pt.2) - Encourage them to be poor ...

"Encourage them to be poor for a few years to go to graduate school."

For many of the speakers at the CRA-W Graduate Cohort Workshop, this quote summed up their (somewhat biased) perspective. They want to encourage women (and minorities) to go to graduate school, regardless of the students' personal and/or career objectives are. While I think that a PhD is a significant accomplishment I don't think it is for everyone - not that everyone can't obtain it, but that it is not everyone's true desire.

There were several students that asked questions regarding whether to pursue a PhD or go into industry. Since most of the women mentors here are in the academy and obviously have a PhD, they were very closed minded in regards to anything BUT pursuing a PhD and becoming a Professor. Let's face the reality - being a Professor isn't for everyone. So why "encourage them to be poor ..." without considering the student FIRST.

So in one of the sessions, I asked a question regarding the drawbacks of an academic career path (the question was addressed to two people - one from a research university and another at a teaching university) and the first answer was "NOTHING - this is the best job" - and they said this with a straight face. Lets just be real - there are drawbacks to every career.

While I think that YES, we need to motivate and attract more minorities to pursue graduate study, we need to also consider the personal and professional career objectives of these students as well, before we push them into a 4 to 6 year PhD commitment.

The perception seems to be that they think women don't pursue PhDs because they lack motivation, but aren't there other (legitimate) reasons women and minorities don't want to pursue a PhD?

0 Ph.D Academic Career Paths: Research, Teaching, Administration

Sheila Casteaneda, Clarke College
Mary Lou Soffa, University of Virginia

Sheila Casteaneda has a MS degree and teaches at a liberal arts college.
Mary Lou Soffa is the Department Chair at UVA

I found it interesting when Dr. Soffa discussed the functions of a professor that she mentioned (in order) research, teaching (then) service. I thought it was teaching (first), research (second) and service (last)??


Expectations of Research Universities
- 60 - 80% Research
- 10 - 35% Teaching
- 5 - 10% Service

Expectations of Teaching -oriented college
- 50-80 % teaching
- 10 - 30% professional development
- 10 - 20% service

• "Time is the biggest problem - you are teaching full time!"
• "Finding time to do research is difficult."
• Research at a primarily undergraduate institution: fewere institutional resources; no graduate RAs but it is possible to get undergraduates involved.

Research Expectations: Research University

• (quality) publications and participation in academic workshops
• funding
• graduate student training
• reputation

Teaching @ a Research University

1. teaching load is usually 1:1 to 1:2
2. may teach undergraduate and graduate courses
3. teaching assistants for grading, office hours, and overall course management

Teaching @ a Primarily Undergraduate Institution

1. Teaching is your primary responsibility
2. Audience is all undergrads
3. Your research may not 'need' to be taught
4. Teach wider variety of courses; need more breadth
5. Teach the same course less often
6. Smaller class size
7. Teaching assistants, if available, are senior undergrads

Service Expectations @ a Research University

1. Department committees
2. University committees
3. External Professional Service (eg. program committees, journal editorship, professional society, etc.)
   
4. Higher in rank, more external service
5. Good to favor research-oriented service

Service Expectations @ a Primarily Undergraduate Institution

1. College: Committee work ("learn to say no!", "Pick the passionate areas.")
2. Department: Advising, Recruiting, Labs, work study, clubs, etc.
   
3. Community: Consulting, Speaking

Challenges

1. Balancing the three roles (same as in graduate school)
2. Networking (force yourself to talk to strangers)
3. Pressure of tenure and promotions (have a plan!)
   

Rewards: Research University

• Love of research and freedom to do research that you want
• Working on research with graduate students
• Involving undergraduates in research
• Making friends across the world
• Variety of work
• Creating the kind of career that you want - independently (as long as you meet
  

Rewards: Primarily Undergraduate Institution

• Opportunity to teach as a passion
• Close relationship with undergrads
• Colleagues in various departments
• Chance for leadership and influence
• Flexible schedule (especially nice for families)
  

How do you find a teaching position at a primarily teaching institution?
- Chronicle of Higher Education, ACM postings; find a geographical area you are interested in and search the local colleges; CCSC regional conferences; CRA has a website of job openings

My Question: Each of the speakers discussed their 'love & joy' of an academic career path, what are the drawbacks?
Answer: The first response was "NONE, I love my job, nothing compares to it." Then they discussed the pressure of getting tenure and said that you can do it and if you are prepared it is not 'as difficult'

0 CRA-W Grad Cohort

This weekend I am attending the CRA-W Graduate Cohort in San Mateo, California. The workshop is for graduate women in computing to provide guidance, networking and mentoring. Some of the workshops that I attended include:

• What is Grad School All About: Goals and Skills
• Ph.D. Academic Career Paths; Research, Teaching, Administration
• M.S. Career Opportunities
• Balancing Graduate School and Personal Life
• Ph.D. Non-Academic Career Paths: Industrial Research & Development
• Publishing Your Research
• Building Self-Confidence
• Being a Women in Computing Technology

The workshop also included lunch break out sessions by research areas. I found this beneficial - the opportunity to network with people from across the country with similar research interest.

The next few blog entries include my notes and thoughts from the various sessions.

0 PhD or Not???? (pt.1)

On Sunday, Luis Von Ahn, a Professor of Computer Science wrote a blog entry in response to a Chronicle of Higher Education article that strongly recommends not going to graduate school in the humanities. I found the article particularly timely because I am debating whether to work or pursue a PhD program after graduation. The article shed some light on the realities of pursuing a PhD in Computer Science (vs other disciplines) and career opportunities after graduations. Essentially, I was left asking myself the following questions (being that I'm interested in a faculty/teaching position):

1. What type of lifestyle do I want to live in 10 - 15 years (after graduation, once I'm settled in my career)?
   
2. What type of lifestyle do CS Professors live? Do they have a life outside of work?
3. What are my career objectives? Is it just to teach? Or teach and do research?
4. Are people with PhD's in CS actually getting their desired job????
5. Since I don't attend a "Top 10" program ... what are my career options??
   

Let’s start with numbers. The number of people who graduate from “top 10” computer science programs every year is approximately 250. Conversely, the number of faculty positions that get filled at “top 50” research universities is about 25. That’s a ratio of about 10%, which doesn’t sound so bad (certainly not as bad as in the humanities), but there are two things that make the situation actually bad: (1) Notice that I took graduates from “top 10” programs and placed them in “top 50” programs, so this is not quite a fair comparison. The ratio becomes more like 4% if you count all graduates from “top 50” programs. At CMU, when we advertise a single faculty opening, we get approximately 500 applicants. That’s a success ratio of 0.2%. (2) The people who enroll in “top 10” computer science programs have already beaten the odds more than once. (From Luis von Ahn's blog)

I encourage you to read the article because I thought it was really thought provoking. I love computing, but the past 6 years (in school), I've been so overwhelmed with coursework, that it took that love away. I'm looking to rekindle that love ... do I accomplish this by pursuing a PhD or finding a job (now) that I love?

Interested in your thoughts (PLEASE POST COMMENTS :) then I will come back with part 2.

0 Ada Lovelace Day

Today is Ada Lovelace day. People around the world are blogging today about a woman in technology whom they admires. Who is Ada Lovelace? (From Wikipedia)

She is mainly known for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. She is today appreciated as the "first programmer" since she was writing programs—that is, manipulating symbols according to rules—for a machine that Babbage had not yet built. She also foresaw the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on these capabilities.

I gave some thought to a woman I admire in technology, but no one in particular comes to mind. Its a shame ... right? I think we need to do more education about women in technology. So I'd like to mention some women I know in computing PhD programs (or working in IT) that personally motivate me.

Sheena Lewis
Beth Adams
Deana Brown
Elodie Billionniere
Glenesha Johnson
Yolanda Rankin
Tammara Massey
Wanda Eugene
Shanee Dawkins

Keep up the great work ladies!!

0 Faculty Teaching

I propose that new faculty members at universities should have

(1) An English language requirement
(2) Classroom observation (by current students and faculty) before they are hired
(3) Participate in a seminar on teaching university level classes

Why do we just place university grads in our undergraduate and graduate classrooms and expect them to produce the best students? Shouldn't there be some standard? If the university's mission is TEACHING (then) research (then) service, why don't we put more energy and resources into TEACHING????

I get frustrated when a topic/class is of interest, but the faculty member is having difficulties communicating the topic because of his/her lack of planning and/or teaching experience.

0 Lego Robotics, RobotC

A really quick post, while this is on my mind.

Today I led a Robotics workshop using Lego Mindstorms and RobotC. I really enjoyed it ... actually got me thinking about a career in Robotics. Anyhow, the Robotics Academy at CMU developed RobotC for use with FTC, VEX and Lego Mindstorms. They have an excellent and free curriculum for teaching Robotics that I used today.

If you are teaching a robotics course, I recommend using RobotC, particularly if your goal is for the students to learn programming.

Also, most students are not familiar with "real world" applications of Robotics, so if you do a course or workshop, there are several YouTube videos that show the relevance of Robotics.

The Robot Champion of DARPA's Urban Challenge

0 Is CS Education ...Engineering Education??

So if you haven't realized yet, I have an interest in the teaching and learning of computer (and information) science. My interest are diverse and include tools to teach (ie. educational technology, ITS), pedagogy, culturally relevant curriculum and issues surrounding recruitment and diversity.

I'm in the process of deciding where to go for a PhD program and it came to my attention that most people doing CS Education research are not in Engineering Education departments. Is this because most people don't consider CS and Engineering discipline? Is an Engineering Education department the place for someone interested in Computer Science education? Most people doing CS Ed research are in CS departments.

These are some of my thoughts:

• In ENGE you gain the background/experience in education
  
• You have an entire academic community/network, whereas in a CS Department you will usually only have a group/lab of several students and faculty members
• With a degree in CS (with a CS Ed focus) you can (easily) obtain employment in CS or ENGE, whereas the opposite may not be as easy. Of course, it would depend on your experience.
  
• It seems as though Computer Engineers are underrepresented in ENGE departments, so computing (educ.) research is not as prevalent. (Whats the deal with all the MechE's?? :)
  

My final thought is that it depends on what area of CS Ed a person is interested in....

Will sign on later with more thoughts...

0 Analyzing Programming Projects

Stuart Hanson, University of Wisconsin - Parkside

"This paper presents the results of student surveys administered after each programming project for multiple sections of two courses: CS2, and Data Structures and Algorithms." They "analyze the data in terms of engagement, frustration and niftiness (from abstract)."

The survey was administered on the due date of each assignment, 4 semesters of data for CS1 and CS2, 3 semesters of data of Data Structures and Algorithms and CS0 data from another institution. Class sizes varied from a low of 6 to a high of 30.

Engagement and frustration
positive correlation in CS2, small negative correlation between engagement and frustration means (the more challenge, the less frustration) and no clear correlation for this difference.

Niftiness = engagement - frustration
- distinguishes nicely among projects with large differences in two values.
- flawed in that it doesn't distinguish among projects where engagement and frustration are approximately equal.

Worst assignments
- all were "borrowed"
- all had instructor related problems

1. bad data set
2. major writing component that the instructor did not adequately discuss.
3. assumed (java i/o) background that students did not have.

I would also like to add to the list: Uniquely designed problems/assignments that were not tested by the instructor or TA. These ultimately end up being a 'rollercoaster' ride for the students with a negative thrill factor ...

Refining assignments work

• worst assignments were all first timers
• best assignments were all old timers

0 Make IT Matter!

This afternoon lunch keynote was by Gregory Abowd at Georgia Tech. "Gregory D. Abowd (pronounced AY-bowd) is the Distinguished Professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. His research interests lie in the intersection between Software Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction. Specifically, Dr. Abowd is interested in ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) and the research issues involved in building and evaluating ubicomp applications that impact our everyday lives. (from his website)"

He first described a few projects his students were working on:

CareLog
- collecting rich behaviorial data in the unstructured natural environment; retroactively saving important video
- trying to determine the reason for 'bad' behavior to create a behavior intervention plan. Schools cannot afford a behavior specialist ..... so how can we use computer technology? You put cameras in the room (activated by a human cue) and after-the fact capture and annotate the video.

Video capture and annotation (by human) to support richer reflection on behavior that a group of people can reflect on. Allows you to infer or make decisions about what is going on and monitor particular interventions.

Technologies for Early Detection
If diagnosed early enough, the impact of therapies can have a greater impact. The CDS has a campaign - "Learn the signs Act Early." First diagnosis are made several years after the first warning signs so the goal of this project is to help parents see and report warning signs. How to address parent reporting & direct observation? How can parents more accurately track the developmental progress of their child/ren (in a natural way)? For example, most parents keep a baby calendar or smart baby monitor.

Can the objects a child plays with inform you about the level of play of that particular child? (Instrumental objects)

Using play interactions between child and parent, what behaviors can we observe? (Smart Video filtering)

Technology & Health
Good news, if you get hit by a bus, you'd want to be in the USA, but if you have any other kind of chronic condition, we are 'embarrassingly' behind the world. In lower socio-economic status(SES) communities, pediatric asthma is found in up to 1 in 4 people for lower SES communities. One approach he discussed is automated monitoring of lung capacity on your laptop or cellphone (Shwetak Patel). Ultimately, he made the argument that using a cellphone is much more accesible than the $30 monitors on the market.

Interesting, huh...

Technology & Sustainability
Lots of scientists are doing work on 'sensing.' The sensors are embedded in places to learn human behaviors. Dr. Abowd argued that it is not practical to purchase 100 sensors for your home. "Lets aspire to a more 'ubiquitous' approach." Two current approaches he described were distributed direct sensing (DDS) and Infrastructure Mediated Sensing (IMS). For example, when you flick a switch, you cause a noise pattern to be caused along the line. You can sense the noise pattern by detecting the voltage transient along the power line. If you place a sensor on the pattern line, can you determine the different light switches being turned on? YES. This idea can be applied to other domains. Noise is being used as a signal to detect behavior. When we think about 'green' computing, how do we make these technologies scale so that it can be used everywhere.

Activity recognition = sensing + perception

Conservation = sensing + feedback + behavior change


At the end, Dr. Abowd made an important point about diversity in computing. That the students are doing work related to their environments and issues. For example, he asked the question 'do you see a trend here?' He showed pictures of students and their research areas. Under the topic "African Americans and nutrition" of the about 6 pictures displayed, there were about 4 African American (primarily women) who were pictured.

This was a great keynote!!!

0 Primitives for a Robotic Arm

This morning, I listened to a presentation by Glenn Nickens from Norfolk State University. He was actually one of my competitors in the Student Research Competition (SRC). The motivation of his research is to develop a high level primitives for a robotic arm, to reduce the learning curve for undergraduate students. Essentially, Glenn wants to design an API for a robotic arm such that the user doesn't have to worry about low level implementation details.

I thought this was particularly interesting, and I immediately thought of scaffolding in CS. Using such an API to teach the basics and then slowly removing 'layers' - ie. students will eventually program the low level details. What other ways can we use scaffolding to teach complex topics in CS?

0 Programming & Problem Solving through Think-Alouds

"Teaching programming and problem solving to CS2 students using think-alouds."
Naveed Arshad, Lahore Uniersity of Management Sciences, Pakistan

In this project, "students learn the skill of problem solving by closely observing an experienced programmer." They found this approach to be "extremely effective ... particularly for female students."

After ten weeks, students were asked to complete an anonymous survey about problem solving ability and effectiveness of the pedagogical instruments. 120 students (30 female).

• 61 percent - agree comfortable solving problems
• The effectiveness of instruction varied based on several factors including gender and agree/disagree to statement.
• ....
  

What is think-aloud problem solving? Whatever comes to your task while performing this task, say it out loud. This practice demonstrates the thought process that is involved in problem solving.

Advantages

1. students learn a variety of ways to solve programming problems;
2. code writing
3. (and something else ...)

Conclusions and future work

• Think-aloud is a powerful pedagogical approach
• has to be used with other pedagogical tools
• choice of person who performs think-aloud problem solving is critical
  

0 Reflecting on Programming

Using Programming to Help Students Understand the Value of Diversity
Michael Wick and Paul J Wagner, University of Wisconsin

"At a predominately-white undergraduate university, how can we instill in students an appreciation for the value of diversity and do so in a way that encourages students to seek inclusiveness?"

From my experience, diversity, depending on what factors you consider can be found or non existent in most computing departments. We are all aware women, Latino/as and African Americans are severely underrepresented in computing fields, but in terms of cultural diversity some may argue that it can be found in computing (in comparison to other departments). In the case of my department, Americans are a minority? Can we ever (expect to) truly achieve diversity, on all levels?

Administered and assessed in an intro to programming in C++ course. The basic idea is to solve optimization problems using a genetic algorithm. They administered a pre and post test to participants.

The project: trivial application - maximize the sum of n numbers using a genetic algorithm.

Ummm...what do you think about teaching genetic algorithms to CS1 students? Don't they already have a steep enough learning curve with programming?

Results

• no control group available
• multitude of uncontrolled factors
• ...
  

I'm not convinced this is a good way to teach programming. While I do think it is important to teach students the importance of diversity, possibly another approach is better ....

0 Behaviors of novice programmers

I always find it interesting to learn about novice programming. Where do their misconceptions lie? What is the best approach for teaching novice programmers? This session "reports on an NSF funded research project investigating the development practices of students in introductory programming courses." The authors use an extension of BlueJ to "capture events associated with program development (from abstract)." Over 55,000 compilation events from over 110 students. The data is collected through ClockIt - a web-based interface used to view the data (programming behavior of students) in the form of charts, graphs and tables. With ClockIt the instructor (or TA) can view statistics per student, such as the number of compiles, types of errors and how long they work on the project.

Authors: James B. Fenwick Jr., Cindy Norris, Frank Barry, Josh Rountree, Cole Spicer and Scott Cheek (Appalachian State University).

Frequency of compile errors

• 6 errors were 60% of all errors (similar to other research ie. Judad)
• missing semicolon (#3)
• unknown variable (#1)
• Bracket expected (#4)
• Illegal start of expression (?)

Time between compilations - 10 seconds (about 31%)

The results of this study almost replicate Judad's study (2005).

Macro Behavior Views (quantitative evidence how programming behavior vs success)

• Can we track the success of the student based upon when they started on the assignment? (start date vs. success/grade)
  
• Incremental work vs. success/grade - if students work on the project incremental, then they will get a better grade.
• Amount of time vs grade - students that spend more time on the assignment do much better; but students who do poor actually commit a lot of time to the assignment.
  
• Can we measure the effort? Event density vs. Grade - There are students that are not succeeding that are really trying - A average and F average have similar event density. B-average students have higher event density than all others.
• What makes a student succeed?

Gathering quantitative evidence of novice programmer behavior; confirms Judad's results; affirms anecdotal advice.

They are looking for more people to use the data loggers ....

0 Wu's Castle

Experimental evaluation of an educational game for improved learning in introductory computing (Michael Eagle and Tiffany Barnes, UNC at Charlotte).

The objective of Wu's Castle is to create an army of snowmen using loops and arrays. The students program the" loops and arrays in an interactive, visual way. The game provides immediate feedback and helps students visualize code execution in a safe environment (from abstract)." The students also receive positive or negative feedback based on their performance.

Results (from pre to post test):

1. Students volunteered (may be biased)
2. Final exam was 54% higher
3. Average scores on post test were 66% higher than the pretest
4. Large effect size cohen's d > 1

Experiment - crossover or switching replications design and stratified sample. Group 1 played the game first then did traditional assignment, Group 2 did opposite. The experimental group did significantly better (as expected). Playing the game first was able to attract and maintain the students attention and help them to understand the code much better.

Gamers vs. non-gamers - gamers actually started of at a lower level that the other students, but (at the end) performed almost the same. Conclusion, students have higher learning gains when doing both the traditional assignment and Wu's Castle.

Is this game available online or publicly?

0 CS Unplugged Design Patterns

CS Unplugged (www.csunplugged.org) is a set of activities that " teaches principles of computer science such as binary numbers, algorithms and data compression through games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around (csunplugged website)." The activities are available on the website and are an excellent way to introduce (excite) students about computer science without using a computer and teach fundamental concepts.

One of my research goals is to develop activities to teach K-12 computer science; which I've been doing through TLI. So I'm always interested to learn strategies and techniques to help me accomplish this goal.

CS Unplugged Design Pattern (found a paper online on the csunplugged website).

Identify improvements to existing ones --> Need some "design guidelines" --> Design patterns in CS (J.Copliens pattern template).

Coplien's design patterns are used in software engineering (and other areas)

Solution

1. choose a concept from CS to communicate
2. identify the key elements
3. consider what games, puzzles, toys or common objects use similar concepts/elements
4. turn it into a challenge
5. evaluate the activity with students
6. refine the activity based on the evaluation
7. publish the activity, with information on obtaining resources with an explanation of the relevance of the concepts being demonstrated.
   

0 Scaffolded Intro to Dynamic Website Development

A Scaffolded Introduction to Dynamic Website Development for Female High School Students -wConnect is a project that is "building an online community of women in computer and information science at Penn State University. The workshops are designed by women for high school girls, with hands-on construction of dynamic web sites." The undergraduate girls develop and deliver the material to high school girls. The results are online (http://wconnect.ist.psu.edu/). The girls are using a pre-build java-based database called bridgetools to develop the websites (by Jack Carroll). The workshop included 56 girls, across four sessions, mostly rising juniors and seniors. Each session was 90 minutes and they completed a pre and post survey. The pages created varied from 1-6, average was 2.72.

Comprehension had mixed results:
- 75% could explain difference in query specification
- Only 50% understood filters

Last year, we introduced TLI students to databases using two approaches: (1) creating a YouTube listing of their favorite videos and (2) Creating a personal blog. Students were given a simple interface (ie. template pages so they don't have to learn php, etc.) Most students successfully completed each project successfully, but I think that starting with something similar that wConnect uses to teach the girls querying and filters will be useful. Databases and dynamically generating web pages is an interesting topic for students, but tools to teach these topics are very much needed.

0 Assessment in K-12 & university outreach

While I've implemented TLI for several years and included assessment - there is always more ways to assess the impact of your outreach efforts. One of the primary challenges I've faced is time to complete outreach, in addition to my academic and professional responsibilities. Assessment is a time consuming task (if done correctly). Then, we have to consider that most outreach is done with minimal resources....

The following are some notes from our intimate discussion:

Greg - there is a school with 500 CS students (out of 3200) in Texas; but the school/teacher does not know what percentage of these students actually go on to CS? (Texas does have an IT requirement for graduation.

Ali - I offer free of charge classes for middle school students; students are sent from the school; half of the students must be female; must be 5th - 8th grade.

I posed the question, "How do we assess the impact of outreach program on the community, education... ?"

The discussion went somewhat astray, but we generated some useful dialogue about implementing outreach programs. What I think is most useful is that when you design these programs, you have assessment in mind - meaning that you outline your strategic and programmatic goals and align them to the actual programs. It makes your life much easier ....

0 Scratch & Great ideas for CS1

What do you teach in CS1? What teaching methods or strategies do you implement? What applications or tools help you teach computing? This was the theme of two workshops I attended this morning: "Starting with Scratch" and "Rediscovering the Passion, Beauty, Joy and Awe: Making Computing Fun Again, continued."

Scratch is a "new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art (scratch.mit.edu)". Scratch and Alice (alice.org) seem very similar in nature - such as the drag and drop interface - but I'm interested to know which "language" (are these really considered programming languages??) really helps students develop transferrable programming knowledge. Activities that are 'visual' are most appealing to students ages 8-18, which explains why web design, robotics and "programming languages" such as Alice and Scratch are helping to generate interest in CS amongst middle and high school students. Another thing I like about Scratch is that the students are able to post their projects online. This essentially creates an online social network of students working on Scratch projects. At this moment, there are 347,024 projects with a total of 8,928,428 scripts and 2,710,427 sprites (animation objects) created by 52,655 contributors (from the Scratch home page). I'm interested to hear about others using Scratch, as well as comparisons to Alice? Is Scratch better for high school or middle school students? Or appropriate for both?

Dr. Henry Leitner, a professor at Harvard University brought up the book "Great Ideas in CS with Java" - while I haven't read the book, the topic sure does interest me. He uses this book to teach an Intro to CS course for humanities and social science majors who want "industry level" programming skills (ie. these students want something to put on their resume.) What about teaching CS2 from this level. From the description of the book on Amazon.com, it seems as a thorough book that covers fundamental object oriented programming concepts while connecting it to relevant programming projects. While he uses this book, he also mentioned using Scratch to introduce students to think 'algorithmically' through 3, 50 minute lectures.

The other workshop discussed how to make computing fun again. How do we rediscover (and share) the passion, beauty and awe of computing??????? Robb Cutler was one of the panelists and he brought up the point that "How we teach determines learning and PBJA." (PBJA is short for passion, beauty, joy and awe.) He also mentioned that "What we see as aww inspiring they see as "um hmm." Soo true :) What we (adults) find 'aww inspiring' youth are not so inspired. We have to realize what we like is not always of interest to students in CS1 - if teachers don't take this into account ... how do we get the PBJA factor? Finally, the computer as the tool and not the focal point. I believe that if we teach computer science from the perspective of computing as a tool to a means of solving a problem or achieving a goal we can make CS a more inviting subject. Zach Dodds said something I will never forget ..."what is learned is the square root of what is taught." :)

0 SIGCSE 2009 - Chattanooga, TN

The theme of this year's ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) is "Engaging Computer Science Education." I am a "first timer" at the conference and I don't expect for this to be my last time. Over the next few days, I will share feedback about the symposium sessions and my experiences. Enjoy!